Sunday, October 28, 2012

 

Dried Carrot Chips make a healthy, raw and tasty snack food

My initial efforts to make dehydrated carrot slices in my food dehydrator didn't turn out very well because my knife-cut slices were too thick. These thick carrot slices dried down into rock hard pieces that required a lot of chewing. Maybe these would be OK for somebody who wanted to chew on something that didn't contain too many calories, but these dried carrots were hard to appreciate.

Thinner carrot slices can be made with the slicing side of an inexpensive kitchen grater or a fancy mandolin slicer. The kitchen grater enabled me to quickly produce lots of small, thin carrot slices. The mandolin enabled me to make longer, wider carrot slices by cutting down the length of the carrot.

grater
grater
mandolin slicer
mandolin slicer


After dehydration these thin carrot slices had a nice crunchy texture and a good carrot taste.

carrot slices from mandolin
carrot slices from mandolin

dried carrot chips from mandolin slices
dried carrot chips from mandolin slices


Carrot chips made in this way are good for raw vegan and paleo diet followers who want raw or minimally processed foods, but shelf life in storage for these carrot chips will be limited. The thin carrot slices should be blanched (brief heating) before drying if desired to produce carrot chips that can be stored for a longer time. Carrots are available all year round in my local grocery stores, so I will just make more carrot chips whenever my supply runs out and will never need to store the chips very long.

More about:
Food & Drink for Indoor Snacks and Outdoor Activities - BRT Insights.
Hot and Sour Zucchini Chips - Raw Dehydrated and Tasty - BRT Insights.

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Comments:
Did you blanch the carrots before you dried them? On a recent raft trip on the San Juan River in Utah, I cooked a meal for 8 from food I had earlier cooked and dehydrated at home. I cooked a leg of lamb with carrots, onions, garlic, and spices. I then shredded and dried it. I served the leg of lamb with curtido, refried beans, and tortillas.
 
Thanks for reminding me about blanching. I edited the post with some info about raw vs. blanching from our past discussions.

So far I've been using my food dehydrator mostly to make crunchy munchie snack foods to eat instead of greasy, salty, store-bought junk.

I am also interested to explore dehydrating meals that that are lighter to carry and can be stored without refrigeration for use on camping trips.
 
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